1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a closure for body fluid collection, transport or storage containers and, more particularly, relates to a ball and socket closure to be used to resealably close a container being used in a laboratory or other clinical environment.
2. Background Description
After a doctor, phlebotomist or nurse has used an evacuated blood collection tube or other primary tube to draw a primary sample of body fluid from a patient in a hospital or doctor's office, the primary sample will typically be "poured off" or pipetted into a secondary tube so that the sample can be simultaneously tested in two or more different areas of a clinical chemistry laboratory. For example, the sample may undergo routine chemistry, hormone, immunoassay, or special chemistry testing. In addition, the sample is sometimes "poured off or pipetted" into a secondary tube for overnight storage, to transport the sample from one laboratory to another, or to remove the plasma or serum sample from a separator gel or red blood cells used in the primary tube. When the secondary tube is not being used or is being transported, it is very important to close the open end of the secondary tube with a closure to prevent contamination, evaporation or loss of the sample.
Current closures for secondary tubes include plastic caps that snap over or into the secondary tube or cork or rubber stoppers, wherein the stopper is solid and includes a plug portion that fits in the open end of the tube and an enlarged head portion used to remove the closure from the tube using a two-handed method. Such closures provide means for sealing the open end of the tube, but are difficult to remove with two hands and impossible to remove using only one hand. This presents a problem, since the closure must be removed from the tube and discarded prior to placing the tube in a chemical analyzer due to the inability of most sample probes to penetrate any solid closure material. In view of the above, it is desirable to have a closure that can be easily removed from the tube or a closure that can remain on the tube and be easily opened and closed many times for manual sample access and/or during direct sampling by a chemical analyzer.